The two organizations will get $1.2 million in performance contract money, a boost from $38,880 they collectively got in 2014.

But the money will be doled out by each organization if the budget, as proposed, is approved by the Mobile City Council next month.

The proposal represents a sharp change with how performance contracts have been financed in the past when the city would individually fund groups.

"The United Way is set up to do this," Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said Tuesday after releasing the fiscal year budget. The city's fiscal year runs from Oct. 1-Sept. 30.

The decision to place more responsibility with United Way and the Community Foundation came during the waning days of the budget-making process, Finance Director Paul Wesch said.

The city had requested twice for non-profit organizations to cut back their funding requests to equal 2014 levels. Both times, however, the requests did not fall below what the city's administration had asked.

"The amounts were so much higher than what (we had asked for)," Wesch said. "The more emphasis we did to manage that, we didn't feel good about that process."

Stimpson said the process became time consuming for the administration.

"You can't imagine the amount of time we spent looking at the information submitted to us for consideration," he said. "We decided to give that money to the United Way and the Community Foundation and let them make that determination."

United Way impact

The United Way, which kicks of its annual campaign next week, will also be charged with doling out additional money to non-profit groups that typically relied upon the city for an annual appropriation.

Allen Turner II, president & CEO with the United Way of Southwest Alabama, said the intent is to handle the appropriation process similar to what United Way already does with its annual fundraising efforts. Beyond that, Turner said, few details about the process have been discussed.

"The mayor's office recently reached out and talked to us about the idea of doing this," Turner said. "It's more of having a focus on (analyzing) the impacts that the programs are having in the city of Mobile."

The Community Foundation will be charged with analyzing how much money will be distributed to community groups involved in the arts. An official with the foundation did not return a call for comment.

"We'll be working with the performance contracts already submitted to the city," Turner said. "The time line is dependent on when or if the process is approved."

Wesch and Turner said the new process should eliminate some of the partisanship and favoritism they believed existed in the past.

"What we have come to understand is this has been a political process to a great degree," Wesch said. "That's not the way to handle (appropriations for) benevolence and charities."

Boys and Girls Club reacts

One non-profit entity that was not included in the fiscal year 2015 budget was the Boys and Girls Club of South Alabama, which got approximately $330,000 in the fiscal year 2014 budget.

Mary Zoghby, executive director with the local agency, said she's uncertain how the process will "shake out."

"It's a new way for the city to do business," Zoghby said. "I know that other cities have done this ... we'll have to wait and see."

Zoghby said she has concerns. The organization, like the other 80 or so non-profit and quasi-governmental groups, will have to go before the United Way and/or the Community Foundation in order to get funding for the coming fiscal year.

There will also be less funding available. The performance contract's overall budget was cut almost in half, from $4.5 million in 2014 to $2.4 million.

"We are going to have to have some assistance," Zoghby said. "We'll do our best to present our case. With all things considered, I know some of the agencies will want for the city to come back and administer the funds. It's totally new and something we are concerned about."

Some contracts remain

While the United Way and the Community Foundation will play a greater role in the process, not every organization will have to go before both groups pleading for funds.

South Alabama Workforce Development will get $70,000 in 2015 (the entity received no funding in 2014) and the Mobile Bay Sports Authority will have its $100,000 restored in the 2015 budget (the money was also eliminated in 2014).

Mobile City Youth Athletics will maintain its $100,000 annual appropriation. The city's appropriation for the Foreign Trade Zone also remains the same, at $18,000. Magnolia Cemetery's $188,640 budget was shifted from the Parks, Cemeteries and Operations budget to the performance contracts.

Also cut were the following: The Business Improvement District (from $86,670 to $75,000), Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce (from $390,740 to $375,000), Historic Preservation (from $52,650 to $50,000), and the Mobile Tennis Association (from $67,797 to $45,000).

Left out of the budget was the Gulf Coast Exploreum Science Center, which got $617,467 in the amended fiscal year 2014 budget. The Exploreum had been the biggest beneficiary of the performance contracts in recent years.

The impact to the Exploreum comes after it experienced a loss in state support.

"That's a decision the Exploreum will have to address on how they go forward," Stimpson said. "I'm hopeful they will figure it out."